Marketing Pearls with Vicki McManus Peterson

• Dentists tend to get caught up in the sizzle of marketing, instead your plan should be predictable
• Suggestion is to budget 8% for marketing
  • Average dentist spends less than 1% but sign up for every PPO out there
  • If you’re at 0-1% make sure you have world-class customer service first, BEFORE turning on the marketing funnel, spend the money to get your team trained
  • Marketing is EVERYTHING
  • Once trained, shift those training dollars to marketing
• Track true ROI for your marketing dollars
• Track the relative value of your marketing
• PPC is the least expensive, most effective way to reach a broad audience
• Word of mouth and patient referrals is still the best marketing plan
• Make sure you have at least 10% of your patient base is referring at any one time, then work up to 20%
  • You’re getting new patients who are already warmed up
  • It holds your team accountable for systems and customer service
• One doctor needs a minimum of 35 new patients a month, depending a wide number of variables
• 9 times out of 10 in order to grow a practice you have to slow it down
• Insurance companies train dentists to be lazy about marketing
• There’s an offense and a defense in marketing
• Video content is most often consumed when people can’t actually listen
• Make sure you’re auditing the metadata Google is adding to your content
• Tie labor and marketing funds together
• Vicki says EBITDA stands for “Everybody In Town Drinks A lot”
• The best marketing plan is to CARE

Richard Evangelista